Molly and Bess on Moshe Hess

Yom Israel Museum/Meet David Levine’s Family: Top 5 of spending your Friday morning at the Israel Museum with David Levine (and his family):

1. Meeting Yoav, David Levine’s son (he had a mild reaction to the word “blog”, but we’ll work on him)

2. Seeing an Jerusalem cat wandering the Israel museum!

3. All the times David started out an explanation by saying, “Do you see [insert structure] over there? Do we have proof that it actually existed in that form? NO!…”, and then proceeding to talk about said structure that lacks proof of existence.

4. Meeting David Levine’s step-mother-in-law

5. Getting off the bus RIGHT before the Gilad Shalit protest in front of Bibi’s house

Today we had an official Israel Seminar Tiyul to Tel Aviv. Here’s our Top 5:

1. Paul inviting random Israelis to join our conversation about Amos Oz

2. Learning in Rabin Square

3. Visiting the Trumpeldor Cemetery, full of famous people that helped create Israel (Dizengoff, Bialik, etc.), and imagining the realtor’s pitch for selling the apartments that overlook the cemetery.

4. The video we watched about Meir Dizengoff and the establishment of Tel Aviv. Most likely produced in 1985 (maybe 1974)

5. Spending class time on the beach

Shalom! We just returned from our three day tiyul to the Galilee/Golan. Hopefully we’ll be able to add more photos in the future, but for now here are our Top 5 Highlights of our Tiyul:

1. “Meeting” the famous Moshe Hess (see photo above) at the Kineret

2. Swimming at Sachne, which was beautiful and refreshing despite the unnatural fish

3. Learning with another one of our new professors, Jeremy Lee, about the “New Jew” that emerges in the late 19th century and early 20th century by watching clips of old films about the “Chalutzim”.

4. Visiting Tel Dan on Thursday with our professor, David Ilan. Even though it was a long and hot day, this site had both archaeological interests as well as a beautiful nature preserve (Keara and Molly pretended they were in the Pacific Northwest for a precious 5 minutes while walking through the nature preserve).

5. Our Wednesday evening “sing-song” (song session) with classmates, professors, and plenty of random Israelis who joined in on the fun

Every rose has a thorn: When the post-tiyul survey asked if anything was missing from the tiyul, we so desperately wanted to write “Dave Mendelsson”. The heartbreaking truth was that Dave had the stomach flu and was not able to come on the tiyul with us, and for that we are still in mourning.

Day 2 of our Tiyul to the Golan/Galilee:

1. Visit Tel Hai (an early settlement) and Metulla (Israel’s most northern town)

2. Drive towards Golan Heights with viewpoint stops of Tel Fahr (1967 war) and Har Bental (1973 war)

3. Lunch at Coffee B’anan

4. Meet with Ramona Bar Lev, a resident of the Golan Heights

5. Dinner and sing-song

Day 1 of our Tiyul to the Golan/Galilee:

1. Tour of Zichron Yaacov, one of the first Jewish Zionist settlements in Israel (1^st Aliyah) including Ramat Hanadiv and Cemetery

2. Swimming at Sachne

3. Dinner and Ma’ariv Service at the hostel

4. The “New Jew” film session with Jeremy Lee

5. Introduction to the Israel Seminar

Today was the last day of our Biblical Archaeology class (for the summer semester anyway), and we went on a really long tiyul (field trip) to Megiddo, Mt. Carmel Caves, and Caesarea.

We’ll repost some of CantrBantr’s photos from this day since our selection was pretty limited.

Ditto.

cantrbantr:

Tiyulim Slideshow #3

Also, thanks to Yoni, Terkel, and Facebook for unknowingly donating some pictures to my blog.

cantrbantr:

Tiyulim Slideshow #2

cantrbantr:

Lots of Tiyulim

In Hebrew, this means trips, or hikes, and it’s how we’ve spent the last two Thursdays. We’ve spent time in Lachish (a major city in the Kingdom of Judea, under King Rehavam), Tel Meggido (an ancient site known for it’s importance in trade, because of its proximity to Egypt and Assyria, but also, according to the Book of Revelations, is where Armageddon is said to take place), and Caesarea (a beatiful, ancient port city, which flourished under the Romans in the Byzantine period). Okay, that’s enough history. There was plenty of sunblock, sweat, pit stops for ice cream, and some pretty unbelievable views.